Sonic 1- Continuous Invinciblility Music
Can't see it's been found before (?)

Just posting a quick topic to see if I may have found a 'new' glitch in Sonic The Hedgehog. Basically, the invincibility music was about to end and I jumped on a 1-up box and hit a badnik in Green Hill Zone Act 3 as the stars vanished, and afterwards the music kept on going endlessly. This was done on the emulated iOS version which is the Japanese revision 02.

I'm going to try and do it again and get a video. I saved it on my iPod, but then stupidly bounced on to another invincibility box without thinking whilst showing it to my brother, alas, I have no current footage.

I suppose there's not much more to say here- other than that if anyone else can give it a go it would be awesome because I think I'm gonna have trouble doing it again. It must be a rare occurance because I've never heard of it, and have played the game a good 16 years and never seen it before either.

I've been trying and I can't replicate it- maybe someone with an emulator can try better, as they can revert saves instead of having to do the entire process constantly. From what I understand, you have to take the Act 3 lower route, get to the secret 4 ring boxes and the 1-up, spin through it as soon as the invincibility music ends and then take the spring up to the high route. Looking back a few days that seems to be what I'd done. A similar glitch can be found doing the same thing but a few milliseconds later- getting the 1-up box as Green Hill Zone starts playing will result in the first "Dummm" of the percussion to the 1-up jingle, but it will then stop and Green Hill Zone will also continue to play.

I've actually found another oddity I've not seen before though, it's been only half documented in my Youtube video. When you get the 1-up box on top of the loop-de-loop, if you go back in to the S tunnel to the right, and enter it only very slightly and come back out and go around the loop again, the 1-up box can be seen intact. If you go up there again though, it will appear broken. This can be repeated a number of times. Eventually I found that it will disappear altogether instead (which is the part I unfortunately was only able to record).

FAO Mods; I understand this is a double post, I'm just trying to get a glitch documented here, so my posts themselves wn't be as organized as they generally would be. If you feel this thread is better in another sub-forum, then please feel free to move it. Thanks.

I've never seen that disappearing box (it surprised me quite a bit), but the non-stop invincibility music does ring a bell. I thought it happened when the item expired while the 1-up jingle was playing?

In any case, I don't think those are documented anywhere, and they'd be nice additions to the bugfix tutorials/explanations.

The non-stop invincible theme happened to me plenty of times while playing the game. It seems the fade in routine in both Sonic 1's Sound driver and Sonic 2's is a bit buggy. :\ Because in Sonic 2 if you get a one-up around the same time the speed shoes power up ends, the fade in routine makes the song either speed up, or slow down. And in this case, it seems the fade in routine cancels out the code that allows the sound driver to revert back to the level's original song. In my opinion, they should have just had the 1-up jingle as a sound effect, like in the 8-bit games. But I'm sure there's a better fix for that than just completely replacing the song with a sound effect. And the fade in routine also messes with FM channel 6/DAC as well. (But that's already been documented and pausing the game fixes that bug.) In the long run, I think the reason why this happens is because the z80 can't process more than one thing at a time, and while it attempts to fade in the original song it gets overwritten by the fade in routine and therefore just continues to play the previous song. But of course I have no experience with music hacking, so maybe someone else could clear that up.

I've never seen that disappearing box (it surprised me quite a bit), but the non-stop invincibility music does ring a bell. I thought it happened when the item expired while the 1-up jingle was playing?

I only remember that happening with the Speed Shoes in Sonic 2, but it seems logical to assume it carries over to other games and powerups.

My favorite sound trick was always the one where if you get a 1-up and pause the game while the music is fading in, it doesn't bring all of the instruments back in, just some. The only other sound bug I had encountered was going into the special stage with power sneakers in effect to get faster music and a sped up score counter afterwards.

The non-stop invincible theme happened to me plenty of times while playing the game.

Well why didn't you tell the rest of us? WHY DID YOU KEEP IT A SECRET!! (joking).

ICEknight, on 03 January 2012 - 03:02 PM, said:

I've never seen that disappearing box (it surprised me quite a bit), but the non-stop invincibility music does ring a bell. I thought it happened when the item expired while the 1-up jingle was playing?

In any case, I don't think those are documented anywhere, and they'd be nice additions to the bugfix tutorials/explanations.

Yeah, it kinda freaked me out a bit. I've been able to replicate it a few times but I'm not sure what triggers it exactly. Basically, take the lower GHZ Act 3 route, then go to the high road, get the two boxes in the trees, kill the badniks, get the invincibility, then drop your way backward to the area, go past it, then run back and hit the red spring in the rock.

I know nothing of how the game renders objects and such, but it seems to me that travelling as such speed from the red spring, through the loop, going slightly in to the S-lopp and coming back out quickly causes the game to incorrectly load the object point where the life box is meant to be, so it will appear unsmashed if you've smashed it, or not at all either way. It seems to only happen when I've destroyed boxes further along in the level, so perhaps it's trying to load things which it thinks SHOULD be there by the time you reach that spot, but then does it incorrectly. Surely a tech member will be along soon to tell us what they think's going on- I hope so, it's mighty queer indeed.

The Game Collector, on 03 January 2012 - 05:39 PM, said:

My favorite sound trick was always the one where if you get a 1-up and pause the game while the music is fading in, it doesn't bring all of the instruments back in, just some. The only other sound bug I had encountered was going into the special stage with power sneakers in effect to get faster music and a sped up score counter afterwards.

Yeah, that special stage one is a favourite of mine in Act 1 and 2 of Green Hill Zone. Pressing start and not hearing all the instruments is something I noticed before but didn't really pay too much attention to. I believe that hitting badniks or doing something which makes a noise in certain channels will bring that lost sound channel back IIRC.

You may also know that if you finish a Sonic 2 level with enough time left on the speed shoes, once you've cleared the sign post and the music has started, as long as you still had the powerup as the end jingle started, it'll reset the timer for your speed shoes, letting you keep them until the next act loads.

You may also know that if you finish a Sonic 2 level with enough time left on the speed shoes, once you've cleared the sign post and the music has started, as long as you still had the powerup as the end jingle started, it'll reset the timer for your speed shoes, letting you keep them until the next act loads.

Wow! I never knew about this one either. I haven't used debug mode in ages but my guess is that it would be easier to replicate if a super sneakers box were placed right before the end of a level? I never realized that there were SS boxes that close to the end of any level.

Aquatic Ruin 1 would be the main candidate for that. That I know of at least. And I'm fairly sure it holds true there. I also remember the "only load some instruments" thing, but not the disappearing box part and the continuous loop of invincibility music DOES ring a bell.

This post has been edited by Jimmy Hedgehog: 03 January 2012 - 07:11 PM

In my opinion, they should have just had the 1-up jingle as a sound effect, like in the 8-bit games.

Then it wouldn't have been anywhere as awesome.

Ravenfreak, on 03 January 2012 - 04:44 PM, said:

In the long run, I think the reason why this happens is because the z80 can't process more than one thing at a time, and while it attempts to fade in the original song it gets overwritten by the fade in routine and therefore just continues to play the previous song.

This doesn't apply to Sonic 1 where the 68000 is the one handling the sound playback (the Z80 is limited to playing drums when the 68000 tells it to).

One of the most awesome musical things about the MegaDrive and Advance 2D Sonic games is the 1-up jingle. It makes you feel awesome for getting one. I'm not a fan of the reused Chaos Emerald sound on the newer games, though I can appreciate why they changed it.